


better than worse

by patrokla



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Possession, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Multi, Reunions, Touch-Starved, an inordinate but much-needed number of hugs, not a fix-it so much as an ignore-it tbqh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 19:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18532018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: Eliot wakes up, and wakes up, and wakes up.





	better than worse

**Author's Note:**

> The season finale fucked me up more than I ever thought media could fuck me up! Like let's just get that on the record: it was a tirefire, it was awful and irresponsible, and it's made me feel ill for the last two days. That being said, writing this helped a little so I'm sharing it in the hopes that other people might also find it helpful.
> 
> Title and excerpts from Bobby Birdman's "Better Than Worse," although you should really just listen to the [Owen Pallett](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhuUPqoZ_q0) cover.
> 
> Warnings: spoilers for most of season 4 (although not really the finale), possession, Eliot dealing with a bunch of side-effects from said possession, a lot of commas, and a possibly unhealthy amount of fluff at the end.

_Better than worse_

_Is free from the curse_

_And when I came to_

_It all felt rehearsed_  
—  
  
Eliot wakes up and sees Quentin in front of him, Quentin with short hair and a cardigan and a beanie, but Quentin, Quentin, Quentin, and he smiles, says,  
  
“I’ve found you,”  
  
although he doesn’t remember how he’d lost him in the first place, and Quentin looks awkward, flustered, cute, as he says,  
  
“Oh, I think you have the wrong person,”  
  
and Eliot suddenly remembers Blackspire and potions and the library and a gun and a monster and  
  
—  
  
Eliot wakes up and sees Quentin in front of him. He has short hair and a button-up shirt, and Eliot has to tug at his own arms and legs to make them move but it doesn’t matter because,  
  
“Q!”  
  
and Quentin doesn’t get it, until he does. Eliot reaches out a hand to rest on his shoulder, or neck, or face, but he can’t move right, clumsily hits Quentin in the chest instead, a precious, glancing touch, and then something is pulling him down and he isn’t touching anything at all.  
  
—  
  
Eliot wakes up screaming, staring straight up at towering trees and a gray sky, stomach feeling like it’s been ripped open by a monster, and he can’t really focus on anything, shaking with pain and confusion, and Quentin is not there, is he, where is he, where -  
  
“Eliot, don’t you _dare_ die on me,”  
  
Margo growls, and the sound of her voice is a lifeline, and suddenly he can feel pressure, and the ground underneath him, and pain pain pain pain pain  
  
—  
  
Eliot wakes up alone. He tries to raise a hand to brush hair away from his face, hair that he doesn’t remember growing so long, and slaps his own forehead instead. It’s strange, so he says,  
  
“That’s strange,”  
  
out loud, but he thinks it doesn’t come out quite right, and it doesn’t matter, anyway, because no one is there. Wherever there is.  
  
It’s all very confusing. Eliot takes one long moment to think, desperately, _I need a drink_ , and his brain tells his hands to reach for a flask that he knows, somehow, isn’t there, but his hands don’t listen anyway. Then he falls asleep again.  
  
—  
  
Eliot wakes up feeling warm. He doesn’t open his eyes right away, because it doesn’t seem very important.  
  
Eventually he does open his eyes, because he wants to figure out why he’s warm.  
  
Margo is looking at him. She’s looking at him, and _looking_ at him, and looking at _him_ and it’s so good and so terrifying all at once.  
  
“Bambi,” he croaks, and that comes out right, it must, because her mouth quirks a little and she runs a hand across his forehead gently, and it’s the best thing he’s ever felt.  
  
“Hey,” she says quietly, “how’re you feeling?”  
  
Finding words that adequately express his exhaustion and the dull ache in every muscle and the way he feels sticky and awful in a way he hasn’t felt in years is an impossible task. He heaves a sigh, and she lets out a huff of laughter.  
  
“That’s what I figured,” she says.  
  
He looks at her, and he can’t quite get his own mouth to move right, but he twitches his hand against hers, and she interlaces their fingers.  
  
“I missed you,” she says evenly, “I really fucking - missed you. You stupid fuck.”  
  
The evenness peters out by the end of the last sentence, and her mouth is trembling, eyes wide, and he forces himself to move his fingers and clutch at her hand, trying to say the things that the rest of his body is too tired and confused to say.  
  
He falls asleep like that, looking at her, grasping her hand and feeling, feeling, feeling.  
  
—  
  
Eliot wakes up with “Q!” stuck in his throat, bursting out of his mouth like a frog, like that time someone had cursed the entire Fillorian high court to constantly cough up frogs unless they - until they - he doesn’t remember, just remembers the sensation, remembers,  
  
“Q,” he says again, or maybe it’s just the first time, and he opens his eyes, or maybe they were already open, and he sees Margo still, Margo again, and she looks - she looks -  
  
“Quentin,” he forces out, painfully, and Margo _looks_ at him  
  
—  
  
Eliot wakes up. Eliot wakes up in the infirmary at Brakebills. Eliot wakes up in the infirmary at Brakebills again, and Margo is there. Eliot wakes up in the infirmary at Brakebills again, and again, and again, and MargoPennyAliceKadyJuliaMargoAliceJoshMargoMargoMargo is there.  
  
Eliot wakes up and Quentin is not there.  
  
—  
  
Eliot wakes up on a wide, soft bed, and for a second he scrabbles at blankets and sheets until he remembers where he is. Kady’s apartment. New York. An absurdly big bed, round, a love motel stereotype. When he’d first seen it he’d wanted to laugh. He hadn’t managed to actually laugh, just let out a sharp burst of air through his nose, but Margo knew, and she’d laughed too.  
  
That had been then. Whenever then was.  
  
Then was not now, where Eliot is, and he pulls a blanket off from over his head and lets his head fall to the side to see  
  
to see  
  
to see Quentin.  
  
Eliot wakes up and sees Quentin. He’s curled up on the giant bed, hair short like Eliot doesn’t quite remember, wearing a black hoodie. The hood is draped around his throat. His eyes are closed, partly obscured by his hair, mouth relaxed into a solemn little expression, and Eliot wants to touch him.  
  
He reaches out a hand and almost brushes the hair away from Quentin’s eyes. Almost. His hand drags along Quentin’s face, and Eliot can feel warm skin and stubble and then every muscle of Quentin’s body tensing as he wakes up, eyes flying open as the rest of his body stills.  
  
“Q,” Eliot says, pulling his hand away, and he’s - he’s crying, he didn’t know his body could do that, but it is, he is, sobs tearing their way out of his throat, and Quentin scrambles up and across the bed, arms open. Eliot finds himself crying against a denim-covered thigh like he’s in high school all over again, and Quentin’s arms are wrapped around him, hands running across his back, solid and warm and _there_.  
  
—  
  
Eliot wakes up and Margo and Quentin are there.  
  
Quentin has been _there_ in Kady’s apartment the whole time, apparently.  
  
“I wanted to see you in the hospital,” Quentin says, hand running up and down Eliot’s arm over and over again, like he doesn’t know that he’s doing it, like he wants to prove to himself that Eliot is also there. Eliot knows the feeling.  
  
“But he couldn’t. He’s supposed to be dead,” Margo explains. “Marina warded this apartment to the gills, so nobody can find him if he stays here, but if he leaves…”  
  
“Who,” Eliot says, _who’s looking for you, who do we have to get rid of_ and Quentin shrugs.  
  
“I’m supposed to be dead,” he says, and Eliot can’t bear to hear that sentence again, not from anyone. He reaches out to catch Quentin’s hand as it moves on his arm and tugs him onto the bed - well, Quentin goes, anyway. Eliot doesn’t actually have the strength to pull anyone anywhere right now. He lets Quentin settle against him, and he looks up at Margo.  
  
“Bambi,” he says, whining just as much as he needs to, and Margo climbs on the bed too, settling on the other side of Eliot. It’s good, it’s great, it’s perfect when he has an arm around Quentin, and Margo has an arm around him, and they’re there, they’re right there together, warm and alive and with him.  
  
—  
  
Eliot wakes up wrapped around Quentin. He takes a moment to relish the warmth and weight of Quentin’s body and then moves away, just to see if he can.  
  
“Hey,” Quentin protests, sounding surprisingly awake, “I was enjoying that.”  
  
“Sorry,” Eliot says, getting rid of the space between them as quickly as possible. He bends his neck to press a kiss against Quentin’s hair and makes it exactly, and then he kisses Quentin’s ear and misses a little, and then he pushes himself up on an elbow and wriggles up a little in bed and kisses Quentin’s forehead upside-down.  
  
“I didn’t know I was dating Spiderman,” Quentin says, mouth frowning upside-down. Eliot sits up, and now Quentin is smiling.  
  
“I’m a man of mystery,” Eliot agrees, flopping back against the pillows.  
  
“Not really,” Quentin says, rolling onto his back and looking up at Eliot. “I know you.”  
  
Eliot smiles at him helplessly, so fucking happy, so very fucking lucky, and so in love. He wiggles his toes under the blankets and drums his fingers against his legs, and then he wraps himself around Quentin all over again.

—

 _Better than worse_  
  
_Is free from the curse_  
  
_And when I came to_  
  
_It'd all been reversed_


End file.
